Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Summer's End

Stefano & Janet

With summer almost over, as is our tradition a small group of friends gathered on the beach in Bellport, Long Island, on Sunday to celebrate with a sunset potluck dinner.

This year, with the experience of having worked closely with The Sartorialist under my belt (as well as my sandproof and waterproof Pentax Optio W60) I paid homage to Sart with a series of full length shots. The results were so good, I thought I would share my foolproof summer portrait tips:

1. Find a beach.

2. Wait until the sun is about 10 minutes from setting.

3. Position the sun over one shoulder.

4. Stand around 15 feet away from your subject.

5. Zoom the lens so that it's the equivalent of somewhere around an 80 - 100 millimeter lens.

6. Crouch down so that the camera is at about the chest level of your subjects.

7. Compose the shot so that there's a little space below the subjects feet and about double that space above the head.

7 comments:

Thanks for the portrait tips. Last Christmas I was gifted a Lumix camera and I love it. Last June I took a bunch of family portraits on Siesta Key beach. It's hard to take a bad shot on a beach. I've also found it's hard to take a bad shot on a farm in Kentucky around sunset.

"If only all blogs were as life-affirming and tender-hearted as that of gallerist James Danziger. Whether his focus falls on the work of an individual artist or a particular theme, The Year in Pictures is compulsive reading."